Photography

JAMES CASEBERE and Landscape with Houses

Since the mid1970s, James Casebere has been making photographs of tabletop models which he builds in his studio. The subject of his work ranges from suburban interiors to institutional structures, inspired by political events and social issues. In his photographs, these models often give the impression of reality. Each image transports viewers into ambiguous environment, evoking a sense of emotional place.

Tom Palazzolo

Vivian Maier Photographer

This 12 minute video by Tom Palazzolo and Chicago writer Jack Helbig tells the story of the recently discovered Chicago street photographer Vivian Maier. Though she was unknown in her lifetime, her extensive body of work is rewriting the history of post-World War II American street photography. The video, told from the point of view of Maier herself, recounts her life and work, from her childhood in France to her move to NYC in 1951 and subsequent relocation to Chicago, where the majority of her work was done.

Doug Ischar

Alone With You

At the heart of Alone With You is the notion of impassioned avarice, i.e. the kind of motivated acquisitiveness that drives both erotic desire and obsessive collecting.

Siebren Versteeg

Inevitable

A grinding mortar and pestle vignette analogously describes the evolution of digital resolution; from a single color to a high definition image to an infinite splitting of that image back into the pixels themselves.

This title is only available on Suitable Video, Volume 1.

Stephanie Barber

dwarfs the sea

Small biographies and musing generalizations--men’s relations to each other and their lives. There is hope and loneliness, companionship and isolation and the simplest of filmic elements to contrast the complexity of human emotions. The delicacy of the formalist writing moves the listener from intimacy to universalism and back again, swaying gently to and fro like the rocking of a ship. The minimalism of the photographic presentation allows the viewer to recognize the humanity in each individual document of a body.

Hunch that Caused the Winning Streak and Fought the Doldrums Mightily, The

Stephanie Barber

The Hunch that Caused the Winning Streak and Fought the Doldrums Mightily

The interior was delusional like any visual psyche. The couches and plants, rugs and paintings were all in cahoots and up in arms over the cahootery. The explorers were under-qualified and cowardly.

inversion, transcription, evening track and attractor, the

Stephanie Barber

the inversion, transcription, evening track and attractor

"how looking at what has become the skeletons of photographs is a visual lecture on aesthetic pleasure or emotion. and how being, almost entirely denied of this pleasure, or having the pleasure merely suggested induces a viewer to ruminate on the act of viewing and that of wanting to view. and maybe it is evolution which causes this anxiety and art form."

Paweł Wojtasik

Dark Sun Squeeze

Dark Sun Squeeze is a darkly meditative exploration of a sewage treatment plant, revealing the hidden rhythms and bizarre journey of raw human waste. The images of flowing waste speak of decay, destruction, of madness inherent in excessive consumption. At the same time they reveal the redemptive side of detritus, its regenerative potential, the sublime that exists in the abject.

“Paweł Wojtasik delivers the final word on the absolute value of news, money, politics and just about everything else.”

-- Holland Cotter, The New York Times, Oct 1, 2004

Dani Leventhal

Shayne's Rectangle

In Shayne's Rectangle, Dani Leventhal's moving and mysterious prayer for healing, a horse farm and a casual poolside dissection are the nodes between which a series of patiently taken sharp turns maneuver through moods both intimate and detached. The camera pursues, observes, offers, reflects, and is reflected. Things clear and things indistinct interact rhythmically, resonantly, producing a volatile and haunting visual prosody.

-- Jeremy Hoevenaar

Dani Leventhal

Tin Pressed

Opening with jarring violence, Dani Leventhal's Tin Pressed proceeds to negotiate a balancing act between the bewildering tonal variances of daily life - with all of its unnamable and enchantingly fragmented specifics - and the gravitational urge to construct both private and shared narratives. The world discovered through these images revolves around multiple centers. The camera's odd equanimity feels both generous and dangerous. Leventhal's deft oscillation between elision and inclusion reveals a brief but vast taxonomy of beauty, peace, longing and terror.

Joon Soo Ha

Twelve Scenes

Originating from personal affection toward Seoul, Twelve Scenes portrays the spectacles in daily life by juxtaposing urban space in a twelve month sequence. As the individual particles in a kaleidoscope create splendid illusions by being reflected on a mirror, Twelve Scenes shows our individual life, seemingly separated by time and space, actually composes the scenery in the kaleidoscope of Seoul. Twelve Scenes represents a 'moment for self-reflection' or 'small, but precious enlightenment on life'.

Scott Wolniak

Flash Art (Circles and Rectangles)

Decidedly low-tech, this optical abstraction begins with a shot of an aluminum reflector inside a lamp; a lightbulb in the shot’s center flicks on and off. As the video plays on, nearly identical shots are superimposed, but at a steadily decreasing scale, resulting in an array of nested rectangles. The rhythmic blinking of intense light- accompanied by audible clicks from the plastic light switch- presents the viewer with a swift progression of blinding geometries, (with) dizzying effects.

-- Michelle Grabner, Artforum, May 2010

Radical Closure, Program 2: War/The Visible Signs

This program presents different approaches to looking at war, and to using images of war. My Friend Imad and the Taxi is an unfinished work from two amateur filmmakers, both passionate about film, who lived in Beirut in the eighties when the city looked like the set from a war film. Samir’s work looks at the intersection between (H)istory and (h)is story as lived at home.

Harun Farocki

Respite

Respite consists of silent black-and-white films shot at Westerbork, a Dutch refugee camp established in 1939 for Jews fleeing Germany. In 1942, after the occupation of Holland, its function was reversed by the Nazis and it became a 'transit camp.' In 1944, the camp commander commissioned a film, shot by a photographer, Rudolph Breslauer. “By exhuming the scattered fragments and traces of the phantom film (intertitle cards, ideas for the scenario, graphic elements), Harun Farocki inscribes the Dutch footage within the genre of the corporate film.

Harun Farocki

Images of the World and the Inscription of War

The vanishing point of Images of The World is the conceptual image of the 'blind spot' of the evaluators of aerial footage of the IG Farben industrial plant taken by the Americans in 1944. Commentaries and notes on the photographs show that it was only decades later that the CIA noticed what the Allies hadn't wanted to see: that the Auschwitz concentration camp is depicted next to the industrial bombing target.

Photography

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